Open water odd track

Here you go.  

Vizi said:

Number of users experienced shortened open water swim distsnces with Forerunner 955 and Fenix 7

And some people have been doing the same since forever on a variety of watches. However, the fact remains is that Garmin state quite clearly:

Swim With a Stroke Where the Wrist Comes Out of the Water

Depending on form and breathing pattern, it may be best to place the watch on the opposite wrist. Avoid strokes like the breaststroke and swimming underwater. If you stop swimming, keep the watch above the surface of the water. Try not to hold the watch underwater for more than 3-5 seconds.

By all means report the issue as a bug but unless it is problems with tracking speed and distance using a freestyle stroke I strongly suspect there will not be too much from Garmin other than a suggestion to swim freestyle. Either that, or to put the watch under a swim cap or tow behind in a swim float.

Thanks for this, but it seems like good practice advise rather than don’t.  My old tracks from 945, as posted are all fine.  The Epix literally tracks nothing. My watch was out of the water quite a bit so something should record.  The GPS even finds a signal indoors on the Epix so I’m surprised it never saw the sky in 20 mins in the sea.   I don’t expect better than the older devices, but the Epix tracks 0. That had to be a bug.  

SteveBUK said:

My old tracks from 945, as posted are all fine.

Looking at the track you've posted it appears far from fine. While it might be deemed acceptable do the results accurately show distance, pace and track for your breaststroke swims? How have you verified the accuracy of the recorded data? The chip and the software has changed in the Epix so very likely you'll get a different result. I would suggest you repeat the swim with the watch under a swim cap or towed behind you in a float bag.

It is obvious that fenix 7 and epix 2 generation watches have issues with GPS in open water swimming that previous watches did not have. It is also obvious that Garmin did not provide feedback on any of those users posted issues. 

I do not support treating serious bugs as user fault, especially when so many users report similar/same issues.

Yes, far from perfect, but not missing in action.  I’m not sure why you seem so intent on pointing our user error when the facts show the Epix is hopeless vs previous generations for open water swimming.  I tried crawl today.  Same issue.  Anyway, I’ll stop commenting on this as it’s going in circles.  Just tested the 945 from my partner.  Loads better.  

Exactly

Vizi SteveBUK

Interesting as DC Rainmaker didn't experience this in his testing, and he does a lot of open water swimming: https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2022/01/garmin-epix-in-depth-review.html

"No matter which sets I pull up on the Epix or Fenix 7/7S/7X from the last 6-7 weeks, the overall GPS tracks look very good. Are they absolutely perfect? No, but they’re on par or better than anything else I’ve seen lately. And as I alluded to elsewhere,"

"Then we’ve got an openwater swim. This is pretty impressive for both Epix & Fenix 7, though we see slight differences."

I hope to confirm in a couple of weeks when I will be doing some open water swimming.

That is interesting. Maybe some watches have hardware issues with GPS when swimming and some do not. 

In any case, Garmin response is needed on this topic.